Three hundred sixty (360) degree imaging is a technique that captures all the viewing directions in an environment simultaneously and gives users the sense of immersion. The 360 degree image may be obtained using a catadioptric optical system, which combines a lens (dioptric) and a mirror (catoptric) to record 360-degree images or videos. The catadioptric optical system may record 360 degree videos in real time, but the captured field of view is typically less than 360×180 degrees.
For high resolution 360×180-degree immersive imaging, an alternative optical system. e.g., polydioptric is widely adopted. A polydioptric camera enables high-resolution panoramic arts by stacking multiple dioptric lenses with overlapping fields of view in one system. The photographs taken by these lenses undergo a stitching process that registers one picture to another, eliminates visible seams, and blends warped images to produce a final panorama. On the downside, such cameras are extremely expensive, even with the decreasing cost of image sensors, and are out of reach for most of the regular users. Low cost polydioptric cameras may also be used. However, such cameras have a narrow overlap thereby preventing the stitching process from forming the correct transformation (homography) matrix to align the images.